When it comes to renovating your bathroom, there are a few rights and wrongs you need to keep in mind, especially if you’re sticking to a budget or need a specific area or aspect to be fixed or highlighted. To help you with just that, here are a few do’s and dont’s you should keep in mind. Read on…

Hire a builder not a plumber to manage your project. Plumbers can only see the pipework and install the fixtures, but a builder can see the entire project from start to finish, especially if you’re planning to remodel the entire bathroom.

Skip the DIY part, especially for the bathroom. There’s very little you can do yourself when it comes to redecorating your bathroom, and even if you try, you may end up spending a lot of time (and possibly money) and come up with something that isn’t even functional and durable for a long time.

Have a 20 percent budget buffer in mind- things can get expensive when remodeling a home, and keeping an estimate of 20% higher cost can help you stick to your budget.

Avoid moving the pipework- you may be tempted to want to change the look of the entire space which may involve moving the pipework too, but if you do so, not only will it be more expensive and time consuming, but it might not be good news for your wallet in terms of additional unexpected expenses.

Choose small, textured tiles for your shower floor if you’re planning to change the tiles. The texture and extra grouting will help prevent your feet from slipping once it is all soapy and wet.

Make sure you have a good bathroom fan for ventilation. Having a window is ideal, but if that is not workable, a fan can help provide ventilation and allow the humidity to escape properly.

Cover and resurface parts of your bathroom that you wish to change, instead of having them entirely removed and worked on. This will not just reduce the time and effort spent on them, but will also be a cost effective solution.

Keep the tub only if you plan to use it. A lot of homes come with tubs installed already, but if you’re a shower person and don’t really use it, it doesn’t make sense having it at all. Instead, use that space to store your bathroom essentials and having it removed will also make your bathroom spacious.

Following these simple tips and tricks can work wonderfully and make your bathroom renovation project a success!

We’re designing it in China and having it made in Portugal. Why? Because it’s really just the best craft we’ve seen so far. What we’re saying is that China needs to step out there and show the world that we can also design and create. It’s not about the world bringing the designs into China’s factory to make, but we’re bringing Chinese design out to the world to make.

Why is it that normally respectable folks, who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a fake Rolex, or carrying a fake Louis Vuitton, think it’s fine to fill their houses with fake designer furniture?

Apart from the dubious ethics involved in stealing some impoverished Danish designer’s hard work, and supporting a Chinese sweatshop industry where toddlers are whipped until they make enough chair legs, isn’t there something terribly desperate about wanting a house full of cheap rip-offs?

Most of these fakes are so built down to a price they they don’t even begin to approximate the quality and attention to detail of the real thing. There’s a reason why a real Eames lounge chair will set you back the best part of six grand, while a papier-mache and sticky-tape version can be had for less than $1000.

Emeco, the genuine handcraft company based in Hanover, Pennsylvania, today sued home furnishing giant Restoration Hardware and its former CEO and present “Creator and Curator” Gary Friedman, asserting claims for trade dress and trademark counterfeiting and infringement.

What Restoration Hardware is trying to do is bad for the American consumer, bad for American jobs and bad for the global environment.
–Gregg Buchbinder, Emeco CEO.

The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco in the United States District Court, alleges that Restoration Hardware has engaged in willful and flagrant infringement of Emeco’s trade dress and trademark rights for its world-renowned Navy Chair® by selling a series of cheap knockoffs with the near-identical “Naval Chair” name that copy verbatim the iconic and highly distinctive design of the Navy Chair®. The irreparable harm caused by Restoration Hardware, an established company, to Emeco’s reputation and significant goodwill is massive, incomparable to that caused by a typical, small-time counterfeiter. The real deal: Emeco’s iconic Navy Chair

Emeco has filed this action to halt that harm and protect its exclusive rights. Emeco seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction to stop Restoration Hardware’s unlawful conduct and the damages to which the law entitles it. The allegedly illegally manufactured counterfeits also include the, “Navy Armchairs”, “Navy Barstools” and “Navy Counter stools” – exact counterfeits of Emeco’s Navy Chair® Collection.

Emeco’s quality guarantee of The Navy Chair® is the result of elaborate and precise specifications developed by the U.S. Navy in 1944 in conjunction with ALCOA Aluminum. These specifications are still used by the craftsmen at Emeco in a unique 77-step process that meets the most stringent American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer’s Association (BIFMA) standards. The chairs are tested to last 150 years.

Emeco is an American success story that has demonstrated to the market its value and sustainability. We create American jobs and work with the best designers to manufacture a product respected and sought after around the world. For us, stealing our Navy Chair® design is like stealing the Nike Swoosh or the Mercedes Benz logo, and then exploiting our brand and reputation to produce an inferior product.

Arguably one of Asia’s biggest names in International design, Kenneth Cobonpue has hewn for himself a career that marries the best of Eastern manufacturing techniques and aesthetics with contemporary collections that are as relevant and practical in Western applications.

Trained in the US and Europe, the now Cebu based designer continues to spearhead the contemporary Asian design movement under his own name and in the form of creative director for HIVE, a collective of international designers and artisans who produce lighting and accessories – sold globally.

The World Intellectual Property Organization’s current WIPO Magazine this month profiles the designer. Pressing him on his thoughts on the ongoing problem of replicas and their impact on the design landscape, especially in the East where a great majority are produced.

The breadth of argument against the replication of original design commonly includes: quality, craftsmanship, ethical manufacturing and commitment to environmental practice, but perhaps one of the strongest cards the anti-counterfeit campaigners have in appealing to the ambivalent consumer is that of the embodied value in an original design piece.

Where the term “value” is used emotively in this debate, it also holds true financial and measurable weight in the justification for protecting a design and its designers interests.

The cheapening of brands, aesthetics and concepts through the undercutting of the selling price is done, as we know, by doing away with investment in quality materials, expertise in manufacturing as well as the initial design process – the result is merely a facsimile of someone else’s hard work. Cheap gets cheap.

To acknowledge that the purchasing of authentic goods will in fact offer the potential for strong return in years to come, is rarely given credence by counterfeit purchasers.

In June, James Cockington at the Sydney Morning Herald examined this issue at a time when investment in property and stock is suffering from tighter pockets and loss of confidence in those looking for sound investments. Cheeringly, auction houses across Australia are reporting no real slump in interest, if anything trends show a boost in the high regard for designed goods and “legendary pieces” as reliable investment alternatives.

We applaud the team at dwell.com who have dedicated much of their recent content to raising awareness about counterfeit design.

Deputy Editor Jaime Gillin has penned numerous pieces in recent months addressing the “real cost” of replicas, as well as publishing the opinions on this issue put forward by design industry luminaries.

From the evils of Zara to America’s disposable culture to the real value of a $1,000 chair, here are ten designers, manufacturers, and design observers sounding off on knockoffs and authentic design.

We would urge you to pop over to www.dwell.com and read these pieces.

Gillin puts forward compelling counter-arguments for the myriad excuses and “justifications” consumers roll out in defence of their counterfeit purchases, at the same time as clearly and concisely pinpointing what it is that makes the continued sale of these items so damaging to design itself.